By Nick Pisa in Rome – Italy has overtaken France to become the largest wine producer in the world.

According to the European Commission in 2010 Italy produced 4.96 billion litres of wine compared to 4.62 billion in France, a drop of one per cent from last year.Domenico Bosco, from the Italian agricultural workers union Coldiretti, said:”This result is fruit of the fact that production has been stable in Italy while in France it has fallen.

“The increase in Italian production must also be compared to the fact that the territorial size of the French vineyards is far larger than our ones. Exports are also on the increase – up 15 per cent compared to last year, which is a very good sign.”

Mr Bosco also pointed out that what would be even more embarrassing for the French was that production of prosecco – Italy’s version of champagne – would also exceed that of their neighbours with 420 million litres being produced compared to 400 million.

Britain buys around 12 per cent of Italian wine and is the third largest importer behind Germany and the United States. wine-business-international.com